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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

DC Exile Relaunch

To the dozen of you that have taken the time to read our little blog over the years, thank you.  We’ve been talking and decided we need to revitalize and relaunch the blog.  We want it to be more relevant, more substantive, and more interactive for you, our readers (Hi Mom!).  We would also like to attract more readers, but it’s hard to claim a share of a saturated market.  So, in our effort to give you more and be more professional we are going to do the following:

New Look
That part has to be pretty obvious at this point.  We’re working on a logo, which is to say, we’d like to have a logo but lack the visual arts savvy to get it done. Suggestions/Help is welcomed.

Mission Statement
Yes, seriously, a mission statement.  What are we doing this for (aside from our own egos) if we don’t have a statement to refer to before we post anything?  We may, from time to time, indulge our intellects (and egos) with off topic posts, but generally speaking:

DC Exile is a blog that focuses on international and domestic politics and economics (with a progressive slant), emphasizing the issues and not the process.

Basically, we want to add to the discourse, not observe and report the horse race.  Additionally, we want to avoid being part of the echo chamber of the blogosphere.  We get tired of reading what Ezra has to say about what Ygelsias had to say about what Steinglass had to say about whatever topic.  Also, ain’t like those guys are going to be referring to us anytime soon, especially if we’re just referring to them.

Features
The Short List - Like Ezra Klein’s “Reconciliation” post or Matthew Yglesias’s “Endgame” post, only to start the day.  It will be a quick round up of headlines from the past twenty four hours.  We’re looking to always post some links you’re less likely to have seen, though if you’re on your game some will be retreads.

Weekly Poll - Posted every Monday morning, we will ask our readership for their thoughts on a topic likely to be in the news in the week ahead.

What Kind of Day Has It Been? - A (mostly) daily closing post about something that happened that day, maybe someone’s good day or someone’s bad day.  Embarrassing video/audio clips would be golden.

Articles
We will have two longer-form (500+ word) posts up each week going more in depth with a topic.  They will be well researched and sourced without the vitriol that can cloud a hasty post.  These posts will add to the substantive discussion of the topic being considered.

Reaction
Hey, this is a blog after all.  We will still periodically post the hasty (often steeply slanted) post in reaction to some juicy bit to come across the ticker on a given day.  This has been what we (or at least Jason) has been about recently and while it’s good for content generation, it doesn’t add much to the debate.

We hope all (14) of you are good with that.  We truly believe this is a relaunch and not a redefinition of what we’re about at DC Exile.  We also believe this will make the blog more valuable to those of you with limited interest in some of the topics we cover. Again, thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Ben & Jason

2 comments:

Gels said...

Been digging the new format; keep up the good work and look forward to the #SOTU opinions tomorrow.

Colin said...

Much improved.